Dear God, plagiarism is a fucked-up word.

It's following Italian (presumably, Latinate) spelling: the I after the G and before a vowel forces a hard G rather than a soft one. Like Giovanni or Giuliani or that scary chef Giada de Laurentiis. You don't actually say "Jee-oo-lee-an-ee", just "Joo-lee-an-ee" -- the I is for consonant-hardening purposes only.

(In Spanish, a C before and E or an I is a soft C, so if you want the hard-C sound, you have to use QU. But a C before an A, O or U is a hard C, so if you want it to be soft you use a Z. Italian is way simpler.)

Let's all just switch to Esperanto.

Italian is way simpler.

Phonetically, Italian is an absolute dream. Of course, it's a language with very marked regional differences, so there are only like 12 highly-educated people from Florence who actually pronounce things the way they were presented in class as the One True Way -- but oh, the rules, they are lovely and clear and consistent rules!

I used to study Esperanto by mail. Spanish is better.

Dude, I'm reading about Esperanto, and then I discovered Riism. It's like a language patch!! Now I want to see the one that turns all nouns into strippers.

I used to study Esperanto by mail.

OMG, I think I did too. Or, at least, I once mailed away for something about Esperanto.

We had study sheets, and we'd do exercises, and then we'd mail them back in, and get new stuff. Such keeners.

Now I want to see the one that turns all nouns into strippers.

"Funny...Joe never has a second noun at home..."

The Cassie Edwards thing has now hit CNN, with a quote from Nora Roberts.

[link]

As a writer, a reader and a victim of plagiarism, I feel very strongly on this issue.

She does not appear to feel very strongly on THE SERIAL COMMA.